The oral microbiome - a multigenerational study

Context

Microbiology is attracting more and more interest among young people, especially in connection with their own health. Practical experiments in this field often require a permit for hygienic reasons, are very complicated and therefore expensive in terms of consumables and equipment, or are simply too technically demanding to be scientifically useful in schools.

About the project

In this Ctizen Science project, there is now an explicit opportunity for pupils from various school levels at the Wattwil Cantonal School to work together with scientists from the Institute of Microbiology at the University of Zurich to set up, implement and also evaluate a study on the oral microbiome. The study will examine microbial biodiversity over three generations between rural pupils from the Toggenburg region and more urban families from the Rapperswil-Jona region.

Invovlement of citizen scientists

The opportunity to gain a wide range of experience in cross-age project and team work, as well as the exchange with various professional and research groups at the university, offer a unique chance for these young people and specifically serve to promote STEM. For the university, young people's creativity and input and the use of social platforms is a level that should be specifically included through the interface, a clear win-win situation.

Project updates

The recruitment group has been looking for families of students who would be suitable as potential study participants according to the official community typology of the Federal Office for Statistics and their family structure. At the end of May 2024, these families were invited to an informal evening event at the Kanti Wattwil. With great success: 20 families have registered for the study.

Suitable swaps for swabbing oral mucosa have been evaluated by the University of Zurich and tested for practicability on volunteers. A questionnaire that meets scientific requirements has also been developed in collaboration with the students. The distribution of the sampling kits to the participating families was coordinated by the Kantonsschule Wattwil. In the first week of November, the more than 20 participating families collected mouth swab and food samples and sent them directly back to the University of Zurich for microbiome analysis.

In addition, the population survey on general knowledge about the microbiome is continuing. The survey was created by the students. Thank you very much for taking a few minutes to fill it out (in German): "Das menschliche MIKROBIOM! Fakt oder Fake?"